u/Wondrous-Wanderer0

I'm turning 51 today, and I don't like to celebrate my birthdays in the conventional way of things. I didn't even celebrate my 50th year. Until I met my partner I've roamed around with all kinds of people, partied hard, moving from one place to another, celebrated it with loads of people I no longer have in my life. It's the way I learned how to live.

I don't have many people in my life now. I have my partner and his family, but none of my own. I have a huge biological family, but standing up against the trauma and drama from my younger years have cut me off. Either I have cut some of them off because of their former mental or physical abuse, or my siblings have sided with our parents and pushed me out in the cold. Due to the divide and conquer style my parents raised us, we've always competed for their minimal grace, and now I am left with none.

Celebrating my birthdays always leaves me with this grief. The empty chairs that scream of my family's abscence. It reminds me that I've lost so much, that I've endured so much, that I'm oftentimes still reeling from the aftermath even as a grown person. I know I should be grateful for the people I do have in my life, but I'd rather appreciate them every other day than on my birthday. By gathering them on that day, I'm left with handling the grief overnight, which reverberates long into to the next few days.

My partner keeps wanting to invite though. And I probably should be happy for his eagerness to celebrate me, but I'm not. I don't want to sit and feel like a fraud. Needing to smile to comfort their needs to show their affection. I want to be doing the things I do when I enjoy my life, which is minding my own business, enjoying the quietude, tending my garden or reading a book. I want it to be just like any other day, without the noise and the attention. I hate being in the centre of attention when it's all about me as a person.

So, today I'm planning on doing the things that pleases me, but I feel guilty. I keep thinking I should do what society brands as a proper, to invite the people who love me, so they can satisfy their need to mark my day.
I'm so conflicted about this, but isn't birthdays also a time for acknowledging my own needs? A day where I do the things I like to do? A day where I appreciate what pleases me instead of giving in to the demands of others?

I’ve always considered myself pretty solid when concerning work. I’ve worked since my teenage years, all jobs demanding well-developed communication and socialising skills. The last five years I’ve worked in management, and I switched to a new workplace the last three of them.

I’m now in my golden years, and throughout my career I’ve built a strong resilience against sometimes impossible odds, but I’ve always landed in the proper place at the end. So, I started out with my usual self in this workplace, believing that I was fit for whatever challenges may come my way, no matter how stressful. I’m used to fixing things, which has been, up until this point, one of my best developed superpower. Or so I believed.

During my time there, a slow decline in confidence started creeping up on me. Without me being aware, it slowly developed into hyper-vigilance, a strong sense of uncertainty and an overpowering anxiety. I didn’t even realise I was utterly broken until I finally broke.

Looking back now, I’ve come to see the reality of that last job. It has all the markers of a toxic workplace. I experienced every single situation described in research, relating to such an environment: gaslighting, favouritism (not me - I was the culprit), harassment (closest colleagues), micromanaging, unhealthy competition and so on, and so on. It has taken me a long time to understand the consequences of this, because: Hey, it’s just a job.
Never in a million years did I see myself dissolving mentally because of a job. Yet, here I am, suffering from the aftershock.

The worst part is the overall damage I suffer. High blood pressure, inflammation due to the insurmountable stress levels, the neurotic flashbacks terrorising me at the oddest times, and the depression - man, don’t get me started. But the single worst repercussion is my loss of self when it comes to my socialising skills. I’ve never been worried or afraid of being disliked or denied. I could speak with anyone and still have a great time. I’ve always been proud of my collaborative abilities, to be able to work with anyone, no matter their personality type. I have so many former colleagues who I know felt the same, that working together was a satisfying endeavour with results we were all proud of. Rooting for each other was the best part of the job.

Now though, I’m so insecure I don’t even recognise myself. It’s as if I’m crippled by lack of faith in myself, and I don’t know how to rebuild that confidence. The team I worked with has effectively killed all my sense of identity, and it’s as if I’ve lost who I once used to be. I don’t even know how to locate that part of me anymore, and it hurts so damn much.

The thing is, my obsession with succeeding, because that is what I’m used to do, ended up occupying my whole life, and I have now woken to the fact that I’ve left all my social life in the gutters. I’m carefully picking amongst the rubble to reconnect to some of my better friends, but now I suffer that crippling insecurity while with them as well.
I’s been half a year. The first three months I was so devastated, I couldn’t get out of the house. My partner, thank goodness for him, took care of everything, including me. Then I’ve spent the next three to manage getting out there at the cost of so much energy, I’m left reeling at the couch after every encounter. Now I’m at the point where I can have a couple of days before that terrible anxiety tries to bring me down again. I’m still fighting though.

What blows me away the most, is the extent of the cost - how a single job can break me so completely. I cannot wrap my head around it. I’ve experienced so many obstacles in life, way worse than this place. In the light of hardship, this job is nothing, and I cannot for the life of me understand how I’ve become so ruined by this. How I now feel so lost, I don’t know myself anymore.

It feels good putting it out there. I’m not one for blabbering about my hardships, I just move on. This time, I haven’t, I’m so shattered and I know it will last a while. I’m getting the professional help I need, and that goes a long way. But as of my social skills, well, I have to rebuild somehow.

What I do wonder though, how have you handled your experiences with this?
How did you rebuild yourself after breaking down from a toxic workplace?